darthmike wrote:

Anyway I'd love to hear you on a podcast more often, do you think you'll be back for another go?  Also how did you get on in the first place, do you know one of the guys?

It took a lot of emailing to get scheduled on a podcast. I may or may not be on others soon.

If you want to hear me on podcasts, email the podcasts you listen to and tell them they should have me on. smile

552

(13 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

Gamer Dude wrote:

Grinding Gear sounds very much like ToH. Is this intentional?

I think it would be in the same general style, but this one is for levels 1-4 so the absolute final deadliness just isn't there. The two groups I've put through it for the most part didn't sweat getting through it alive, although they didn't find the final treasure.

The podcast is here: http://www.rpgcircus.com/node/32

Any questions or items to discuss goes in this thread!

Up until this point, Death Frost Doom was being printed on my home machine as orders warranted. It was the first real release of my publishing company and I didn't want to risk having a big pile of books that didn't sell. Much to my delight, it is selling quite well. However, this absolutely murders my printer cartridges. With new vendor agreements being finalized and more being sought, and the new round of promotional mailings to local-territory/language webzines and bloggers that will be needed to support them, I decided to invest in a print run.

The "second printing" of Death Frost Doom is identical to the first printing in every respect except:

3 typos corrected. Hopefully no new ones introduced.
Full-page images, including the cover, will now extend to the edge of the page instead of having a border.
The background area of the map has been blocked out, to address the numerous comments about the readability of the map. Not my ink being used anymore so what the hell. smile

The price will remain the same.

555

(0 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

None of the art and none of the maps have been delivered. I've seen the prelim sketches for the artwork and approved the color scheme for the cover and the final illustrations are being worked on, and my hand-drawn maps and related notes have been sent to the cartographer.

I've submitted two possible formats for pricing at the printer:

A- 24 page A5-size saddle-stitched booklet with color cover. The middle two sheets would be map pull-outs, one for the players and one for the referee.

B- 16 page A5-size saddle-stitched booklet, and two detached cover sheets (outside cover in color) plus a folded A3 sheet. The second cover sheet would be a double-sided map sheet, and the A3 sheet would be a player handout.

B will cost more, but it remains to be seen how much more. I like the idea of that format, but with a 16 page adventure there's only so much extravagance the project can afford I think.

The sections of the adventure:

Author's Notes
Referee Introduction
The Surface Area
Dungeon Level One
Dungeon Level Two
Cheat Sheet

The cheat sheet is a description of the internal logic of the adventure. The dungeon is basically set up by a guy intentionally screwing around with adventurers, and a lot of things that might seem random have in-game logic to them. Instead of cluttering the actual descriptions with these explanations, I've moved it all to its own section.

Maria will begin proofreading tomorrow, and she's already made a layout suggestion that has made my life much easier. smile

556

(13 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

"The adventure that asks - nay, DEMANDS the answer to the question: Are You Good Enough?

After the death of the wealthy innkeeper of The Grinding Gear, rumors were rampant that he had constructed a tomb that was theft-proof. The traps were devious, the danger more diabolical still.

But there is treasure to be had! What dungeon delver could resist the challenge?

But a warning:

If this adventure does not drain every drop of your blood, then it will disintegrate you. If it does not disintegrate you, it will electrocute you. If it does not electrocute you, it will starve you. If it does not starve you, it still will defeat you in a battle of wits.

You very well may survive.

But only the best will win!

If you think you're ready, if you've got the guts, tell your group's referee that you want to test yourself against THE GRINDING GEAR."

557

(3 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

ShawnH wrote:

Another aspect of what makes the game is the actual nuts-and-bolts of the game session, so I'm wondering if people have any references that they think are a really accurate example of play. Not a description of what the characters did, but a description of what the players at the table did, that you can read and say "Yes! That is exactly what it's like when we're playing and everyone is having a great time."  Even better if it's a description of play for a module like Death Frost Doom where (as I understand it) much of the play is outside the combat-simulator meat-grinder.

This would be interesting to examine, but not interesting to do. At least not for me. I know there are podcasts where people play different games, but I wonder if people act differently just because they're being recorded.

The perfect person to do things like this would be my girlfriend, because she hangs around the apartment while we play but doesn't participate. She'd be the best judge of whether people actually enjoyed themselves, and what the process of play actually is like during an involved game session (not every session is so... I think last session everyone present was half-elsewhere, myself included!) because she's an outside observer, and she's been in the background often enough that people pretty much ignore that she's there while we play (most interesting example is when we had an Olden Domain game hosted by someone else, and she came along and just knitted on the couch at these peoples' house while we gamed).

(I just asked her. "I don't think I can write about it in an interesting way. I think it would be very boring.")

Good to hear, guys. smile

Navdi wrote:

If the picture is more exiting than the description in the module, why not just change the description to match the picture? wink

It's literally the first thing PCs will see in the adventure. No need to make that over-the-top in the adventure, not to mention that many details besides appearance would have to change if the appearance changes. If the cover art showed the true state of affairs, nobody would ever reach the dungeon. smile

You know, things like "The pile of bodies is not nearly that massive in the module. And that building in the distance there should really be closer."

Everything is there, just not exactly in the right place or right amounts. big_smile But I think I'm going to go with it anyway. "Gee, we need to make the picture less exciting to match the situation exactly," is probably not a good policy for front covers.

561

(218 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

Bill Hooks wrote:

so I mainly just do D&D-related artsy-craftsy stuff.

Did you do that artwork yourself or just the graphic design?

I just received an excellent sketch from Laura Jalo for the Grinding Gear cover.

It has all the individual elements, yet the image as portrayed is more of an exaggeration impression of the location depicted within the adventure.

So far I've been pretty anal with the art in making sure that the illustration matches the written description. You don't want to know how many different sketches, with only the most minor variations, I made Laura do for the High Priest Temple in Death Frost Doom until I was happy...

But this drawing rocks, and would surely be a most eye-catching cover. But it doesn't match.

In your opinion, is this a problem?

563

(1 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

Adam wrote:

Geoffrey McKinney reviews _Death Frost Doom_ extremely favorably on rpg.net:

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14513.phtml

BTW: the Planet Algol blog (planetalgol.blogspot.com) has an insanely entertaining running transcript of Actual Play in a Carcosa-derived setting.

Adam

It's more or less the same review he posted on Dragonsfoot, which is why I haven't referenced it separately. Still, it's always nice to see good words spread to new places. smile

Navdi wrote:

How much setting material do the adventures include? What are the page counts? Can you give us any estimates on how many game sessions or hours worth of material each of these are? Are we talking three, five, or ten game session adventure archs here? Is the material "system-free" in the vein of, say, No Dignity in Death?

Insect Shrine is huge. Depending on which angle you take (and especially how involved the referee make the "home base"), it can be as little as four, but as many as a dozen sessions. I haven't done layout (proofing and such won't be done until after the full version is played), but keeping this to the originally planned 64 pages will be difficult. 72 might be more realistic including maps.

The Grinding Gear will probably end up at 20 pages including maps and might very well be a one-session dungeon if you have an organized party.

The statting will look like the previous releases, but the adventures should be a little less alien to the classic styles of play.

Insect Shrine's manuscript is effectively done, and just needs playtesting.

The Grinding Gear's manuscript just needs two locations written, but has been played in its entirety multiple times and the process of writing the manuscript is just turning scratch notes into English.

Insect Shrine is a grand adventure spanning a decent-sized wilderness area. It's huge. The Grinding Gear is a single location. Not so huge.

Insect Shrine is a sandbox with certain leading events drawing the PCs into a grand web of intrigue and danger. Starts slow (yet hopefully interesting), ends in madness. The Grinding Gear very well may be over the top insanity in the very first described location.

Insect Shrine and Grinding Gear both offer numerous opportunities for a TPK, but in my estimation the behavior that will lead to such is completely different in each adventure. The "moral of the story" playstyle-wise may be exactly the opposite between the adventures.

However, both share one thing in common: Challenge. One impression I get from online actual play reports is that when running their own material, referees will tailor it to their party, and will err on the side of survivability and player success. They don't want to be dicks to their regular group, and being a Killer DM is as undesirable as being a Monty Haul. However, they give themselves permission to be brutal, and players forgive such brutality much easier, if using a published adventure. Then the referee is more easily a neutral arbiter, and isn't directly responsible for whatever carnage ensues. Does anyone else notice this?

Now I don't believe I am publishing Killer DM stuff, but I do believe in a good challenge. And challenge means risk of failure. That I enjoy.

I can't wait to get both of these finished and out the door, and I can't wait to see how you guys react to them.

566

(218 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

Who are you? Where do you come from? How old are you? What did you start playing these traditional fantasy RPGs (again)? What draws you to LotFP stuff, be it blog or commercial releases?

Tell!

Me, I'm 34 now, I lived in the US (Connecticut, Georgia, Florida) before moving to Finland. I started gaming either in December 1983 or 1984, can't remember which it was, with the Mentzer red box. After moving to Atlanta to go to school in 1992, I drifted out of gaming since it just seemed everyone wanted to play Vampire or Magic and I wasn't interested.

In the early 00s I wanted to get back into gaming, but nothing at the local game store caught my interest. So I thought I'd make my own RPG. After most of the writing was done, I got online to find that, well, there were websites and forums dedicated to RPGs. Surprise! This was 2003, I think? Maybe 2004?

When I moved to Finland, I decided I was going to play old school D&D, so I re-bought the books and got a group. Aside from a 4-5 month HERO System game, I've been playing the old D&D versions, or one of the clones, since March/April 2006.

Also since that time, I've toyed around with amateur publishing projects, some to good effect, some which were ill-considered disasters. In July 2009 I decided getting a normal job wasn't for me so I started my own publishing company, hoping that I've learned from my earlier mistakes.

Things are looking pretty good so far.

You?

This is the internet, and this is a message board. We know how this works.

As usual, there are some rules to follow to ensure this is a fairly pleasant place to be:

1. Be polite.
I know I'm not polite everywhere, but I will be here. So will you.

2. Be On Topic
The primary purpose of this forum is to support and discuss and criticize LotFP publications, and the secondary purpose is to support and discuss and criticize the games those publications themselves support.

Topics that are wildly unrelated (including but not limited to political events, weird news, sporting news, or general fantasy or sci-fi links or news) should probably go somewhere else. This is also not the place to discuss general gaming news unless it is related to or impacts LotFP/simulacra/classic gaming.

Edition warring should be kept to a minimum. If you're using LotFP stuff with an unexpected game or edition (or even inquiring about doing so), that's fine.

3. No linking to or encouraging illicit downloads of commercial material. Especially currently in-print material.
That's just bad form. I'm a commercial publisher and it would be annoying to see that kind of stuff on my own board. It's also just professional courtesy to extend that policy to other publishers' work as well.

4. Use conversational, if not proper, English.
This is just me being an old cranky fart. I won't mind typos and I won't punish people for whom English isn't their mother tongue, but a little bit of effort would be nice. Use words and don't write things like, "CU L8R!" Capitalize the beginnings of sentences, make at least an attempt at punctuation. Usage of the phrase "amirite?" is a bannable offense.

Also, we're starting with just a single forum. Additional sections and subforums can be added if there is demand and need for them.